Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

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19.9.13

Gov. Bobby
Jindalmight
not be exactly right on why the federal government wishes to throw up an artificial
impediment to derail Louisiana’s scholarship voucher program, but he and
opponents by keeping the pressure on against might make the suit’s supporters
think twice about pursuing the matter.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to have the state submit for
review consequences of the program’s operation to federal courts in schools
districts under desegregation orders to obtain clearance before implementation
of these outcomes in them. The voucher program, which allows students in
poor-to-failing schools the ability to have the state pay for their attendance
at another qualifying public or private school, can have the effect of
marginally increasing majority-race proportions at schools under orders to reduce
the incidence of school populations that had heavy compositions of students of
one race. As long as this segregation is not solely created by voluntary living
patterns, in these districts with a history of intentional segregation under
court orders would have to have court review of any outcomes of voluntary,
individual decisions made where students desire to leave a public school
courtesy of the program.

While procedurally this seems neutral, in reality it invites judicial
mischief. Based upon criteria spelled out in the suit, DOJ argues even the most
minute adjustments can be interpreted as retrogression in affirmative district
action to bring as much racial diversity to schools as possible. There’s no
reason a federal judge can’t declare such minutiae as critical and violating
orders even as, Jindal and others have pointed out, the impact would be likely
to improve educational delivery to minority race children.

The Louisiana Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Living requested the cities of Monroe and West Monroe and the
Ouachita Parish Police Jury to consider an ordinance that would ban entirely indoor
smoking in places of public commerce, going beyond state law that does not ban
it in establishments that primarily act as bars and in gambling locations. Apparently,
private lodgings would not be covered. Monroe’s City Council will take up such
an ordinance next week.

Often, the narrative surrounding the issue of where smoking should be
permitted gets framed in terms of smokers having rights to light up, or in
other to engage in a certain kind of behavior. Often ignored is the liberty of
others not to have fumes from tobacco intrude upon their breathing. Opponents
of these bans say the resolution is to let the market decide, for if there’s
enough demand for smoke-free watering holes (places where the majority of sales
are food already have smoking indoors banned) or bingo halls, they will be
supplied.

17.9.13

If the Revenue Estimating Conference and Louisiana budget prognosticators
are right, it looks like the state better start budgeting for the next couple
of fiscal years on increases less than a rise in the cost of living, courtesy
of a little-noticed
provision in this past legislative session’s “funds sweep” bill, which
might finally provide the impetus for historic major cutbacks heretofore absent
in state budgeting.

For fiscal year 2010, the state took a dip out of the Budget
Stabilization Fund, better known as the “rainy day fund,” to shore up the budget
for that year. The problem was, under the BSF’s rules, it essentially
required repayment during that fiscal year. That inconvenience was worked
out by statute, essentially resetting the rules going forward. The unusual situation
was that with sufficiently high mineral revenues that would force money into
the BSF when it was below its cap of four percent of total most recent past state
revenues, even as there was a declining state revenue picture, so the reset
suspended repayment under those conditions.

But the problem with that was statute cannot override the Constitution,
and some spoilsports sued to reinforce that reality. Meanwhile, lawmakers and
Gov. Bobby
Jindal hoped in 2011 to amend the Constitution to erase the conflict. That
would have opened up the BSF to more trivial uses, and voters wisely rejected
that. A court
eventually initially sided with the statute, prompting the state to take
another helping out of the BSF for FY 2013. But policy-makers realized that
judgment was unlikely to survive informed judicial scrutiny, so the next year,
this past spring, into Act
420 went language undoing the fix for the beginning of FY 2016.

16.9.13

Gov. Bobby
Jindal apparently saved the best for last in his revamping of health care
delivery for the indigent and developmentally disabled in the Louisiana, as his
administration is poised to make changes to the provision of long term care in
the state that will provoke controversy among a privileged class.

Recently, the Department of Health and Hospitals announced
the formation of a group to advise in this area of policy, with a planned
implementation date in 2015. Currently, the state pays $2.4 billion a year, or
about a tenth of its budget, for long term care to about 70,000 individuals, or
an average cost of almost $35,000 a year. The concept is to move administration
of these services to a managed care concept that would better match needs to
services, which probably would save taxpayers money as well, but with a primary
goal of expanding access.

If there is one area of health policy that just begs for increased
coordination, this is it. Basically, the elderly indigent qualify to have the
state pay for their care, and the disabled also may receive services with a
higher ceiling on assets and income to qualify. Until about 15 years ago, this
garnered a single state response: chuck them in a nursing home and reimburse these
providers day after day.

Its current President Tim Doody and Vice President John Barry will not
be reappointed by Jindal. Both supported (even as Doody, an accountant,
abstained on the formal vote he said because the matter might involve his law
firm) a lawsuit filed by the SLPAE in order to milk potentially billions of
dollars from companies alleged to have violated agreements and knowingly caused
environmental destruction that may have eroded the state’s coastline. Their
terms expired, the governor must appoint individuals to serve from choices provided
by professional and political groups, and the Jindal Administration has said
even if these guys are recommended as part of that, he will pass them over.

That the pair was instrumental in bringing
about the suit is more than enough reason to let their service lapse, as it
is of questionable legality and its chances of success are dubious, but perhaps
most consequentially is an attempt to arrogate state policy-making power to a
local/regional subdivision of the state. But in remarks made by Barry since
then and most recently in response to his non-reappointment, he shows he has no
understanding about how public policy gets made and its consequences – hardly qualifications
for service on it in the first place.

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